


Hiding Place

by schrodanger



Series: The Three of Swords - Prompts and Other Stories [1]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comfort, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4792817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrodanger/pseuds/schrodanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Latibule / Hiding Place prompt from Tumblr. The Inquisitor struggles with the spreading mark and the consequences of drinking from the Well of Sorrows. Sera / Lavellan comfort, SFW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiding Place

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt from KestrelShrike / kestrelsansjesses - the prompt was latibule / "hiding place."  
> Takes place after the main part of Dragon Age: Inquisition, but before Trespasser (and was written before the release of Trespasser).

It was when the sun finally began to set that Seldras left the Great Hall. The place was always so loud, every noble’s squabbling echoing off the ancient walls and bouncing around painfully inside her skull. On some nights, she could manage it. This was not one of those nights. The cacophony of voices just seemed to get louder and louder – a deafening white noise.

To make things worse were the newest voices within Seldras herself, the ones speaking in a lost tongue that she could barely understand. Sometimes the nagging whispers in ancient elvhen would break off into warped roars and screams that terrified her to the core. Worse were the nightmares, grotesque visions of hellscapes drenched in black sludge….and the eyes. Always the eyes.

No one had noticed her discomfort outside of the mark, which had begun spreading at an alarming rate in spite of Corypheus’s death. Leliana assured her that she was searching for someone – anyone – who could offer insight into a solution for the magic eating away at her, but so far her search had yielded nothing. As for Solas, he was as absent as ever. Seldras was beginning to accept that she would never see her former mentor ever again.

She shook her pounding head and made her way across the courtyard to…..the tavern?

At this time of the day, it was not so loud there. The soldiers had yet to pile into the poor rickety building and provide it with its nightly pummeling. The ruckus would be no better than the Great Hall then. Hopefully, by that time, she would be asleep and dead to the world– preferably in a pair of warm arms, if Sera would have her.

She practically dragged herself up the stairs to the second floor of the tavern. Luckily the lack of customers also meant no one had to see her like this, hobbling like an elder and barely able to keep herself from crying out. She wondered idly if Sera had an extra elfroot pipe stowed away for her in her “cabinet of wonders” but decided it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was here, hidden. Not from herself, but from the demands of the Inquisition at least. 

Seldras gave the door to Sera’s tiny “room” a distinctive knock. One-two, pause, one-two. Code for “Seld-ras, In-ky,” to let Sera know it wasn’t some nosy old drunk looking for a good time with the wrong person.

Sera immediately cracked the door open with a broad smile. “'Ey there, luv!”

Seldras offered her a genuine but weary smile in return. “Hullo.”

Sera’s face fell. “Wassit? Some noble bad mouth ya? D'ya need earwigs in his tea?”

“No, nothing like that, and you know me. I give ‘em my mind. No earwigs needed.” She slid into the room and flopped down onto the couch, which had been recently decorated with a new set of mismatched fabric. Seldras ran her good hand over it fondly.

Suddenly, her right arm jerked in a flash of sickly green light and she let out a pained gasp. Darkness ate at the corner of her eyes. She forced herself to breathe in labored gasps.

_Please don’t pass out in front of her, please…_

The door firmly clicked shut and Sera was immediately at her side. Her grey eyes were filled with desperate worry and fear. After the episode had passed, Sera simply pressed her cool forehead against Seldras’s feverish cheek. Where there had once been jovial chatter, there was now solemn silence.

After a moment, Sera closed the blinds, part of ritual that the both of them had become accustomed to. The door had been recently soundproofed, but not for the reasons the gossip-mongers of Skyhold might have guessed.

Quiet, darkness. Things the Inquisitor needed, but only found in the most unlikely of places. 

She sprawled out on the couch and rummaged around on the floor for….there it was. She pulled the worn multi-colored mabari plushie up to her chest and closed her eyes tight.

_Se lah dru ras….dru…lah dru…._

_Harillen……revas….fen…revas…._

_Uan, anan'ta…. isenatha._

_Isathe. Isathe. Se lah dru ras, se lah dru ras!_

“Them voices buggin’ you, ent they?” Sera asked, her voice abnormally quiet. At some point she’d snuggled up behind Seldras on the couch. Her arms were wrapped tightly around here in a protective, soothing gesture.

Seldras nodded slowly.

“I told you. I  _told_  you not to…”

“I know. I know. I’m s….I’m so sorry.”

“Worst shite is that it’s not even that what’s hurting ya the _most._  It’s…..that thing. Why’s it spreadin’? You closed the friggin’ arsehole in the sky, you killed the bigger arsehole who made it….why’s it doin’ this?”

“It’s just a flare up probably, like I dunno… a rash. We fixed it before when I first joined. We’ll fix it again.” Her stomach turned to lead. She never liked to lie to her.

She felt something wet on the back of her neck….not a kiss. Tears.

“Sera. I promise. I’ll be fine.”

“Y'better keep that promise. Or I’ll….shoot an arrow right in this nice bum of yours.” Sera gave Seldras’s bottom a pinch to prove her point. Seldras stifled a snort.

“That’s fair.”

“Bloody right,” said Sera with renewed confidence. Seldras rolled over on her back and blinked up at Sera with a sleepy smile. The rogue had rubbed away her tears, replacing her worry with a catty grin.

“Pranks. Tomorrow. Bright an’ early, or I’ll kick yer bottom. And it’ll hurt. And they have to be NEW pranks! Can’t have any fun with buckets a’ water and crooked desks anymore. They all expect it. Boring!”

“Sounds like a plan.”  Seldras sat up and reached out her good arm to Sera. Sera flashed a crooked grin and snuggled up next to her once more.

Before long, Sera was quietly thumbing through a smutty book she’d swiped from Cassandra’s collection even though it was much too dark in the room to read.

Seldras rested her cheek on her shoulder, drifting in and out of consciousness.

The pain didn’t stop. The voices didn’t stop. The rising din coming from downstairs certainly didn’t stop.

But sitting next to  _her_ , the loudest, most chaotic and rambunctious person in all of Skyhold, she felt at peace. 


End file.
